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Even Steven himself doesn't realize it before it comes up in therapy.
They're discussing witnessing and being party to violence and the obvious suspects come out first: corrupted gems, Homeworld gems, the Diamonds.
—And then he freezes.
…He forgot one.
Like, really forgot one. And… he doesn't even know when he forgot it? Was it somewhere between summoning his shield and finding out his mom was a war criminal? Or was it sometime even before that, before he even lived with the gems? He—?
"Steven?" His therapist's voice cuts through the mental noise, warm and only the slightest bit concerned. "Are—"
His voice comes shocked, as if he is completely appalled at himself for having ever put it out of mind, as if every minute detail is flooding back into his brain as if it never left in the first place. "—I was seven. A-At Funland." He's quiet for a moment.
"…She told us she needed to go to the store."
Cassiopeia Felipa Hewitt—just Cassi to her friends, please—was working her first summer job on a bright Tuesday at Funland.
Well. Her second summer of her first summer job. She had started a few weeks shy of her 16th birthday, and her 17th was just around the corner this year.
Mr. Smiley had begged her to stay on during the year, too, but junior year had proven to be just too tough for her to think she could have mustered both.
Especially with the kinds of kids this town harbored. And she'd babysat half of 'em for years, so she knew just what kind of carnage they could unleash.
Speak of the devil, as Steven Universe and Peedee Fryman, the only two kids their age in the entire small town, clamored out of Mr. Universe's van to lay waste to the amusement park.
Parents in this town just seemed to love letting their kids out on their own, whether those kids were, say, the Pizzas or that Barriga kid, just a few years younger than her, or little seven year olds like Steven or Peedee.
She guessed—outside the semi-frequent gem debacles that sometimes occurred—people saw Beach City as safe, a place where people looked out for each other and made sure their neighbors were okay.
Hey, it wasn't as if they were Ocean Town, right?
The boys jetted toward The Appalachian, as if they somehow weren't going to get immediately rejected for being too short, and she rolled her eyes.
—And that was when she noticed the blond haired woman in the white tank top, someone she was sure she had never seen around town before, standing near the restrooms and looking a little too closely. At a couple of seven-year-olds.
Get it together, Cassi. She's probably just some mom or something dumb like that, keeping an eye on two kids 'cause she's worried about them like she'd worry about her own or some junk.
…But what if she's not?
In all their excitement for a fun Funland day as a celebration of Steven moving into the completed Beach House in the next few weeks, they never stopped to consider maybe they'd be too short for The Appalachian—Steven had thought especially with all he'd been growing lately that maybe he was big enough now, but apparently not. And they were far too grown up for the kiddie rides!
(And Steven was a little scared to ride the teacups. Dad had told him that heights weren't that scary, but still!)
Oh, well.
They could just play some games!
They bounded up to the water gun booth of one Cassi Hewitt, mischievous smiles on the both of their faces.
She raised a brow as she looked down at them. "And what can I do you two for?" She leaned her arm on the counter and looked them square in the face.
"LET US PLAY ALL YOUR GAMES FOR FREE!" Peedee blurted.
"Heh. Yeah. No. I really do not want to get fired today," she replied, glancing up and briefly, suddenly making eye contact with the woman across the way. The look in her eyes made Cassi's hair stand on end.
Steven dejectedly said something about not having enough tickets to do all the stuff in the park, but Cassi wasn't listening, watching as the woman looked away and fidgeted as if she was trying to find something, anything else to look at.
That cemented it: there was no way that lady was anything but trouble.
Her eyes narrowed and she kept the creep in her peripheral vision as she lowered her voice to speak conspiratorially to the two kids in front of her. "I can let you play a super cool secret special game, though. On the house. But first, I have to make sure no one is looking! Don't wanna get in trouble," she said with a wink.
She looked up and the woman was nowhere to be seen, but she couldn't be sure…
She scanned for maybe longer than she felt comfortable, but then she was finally content that the woman's eyes were hopefully not on what she was about to do next.
"—Okay!" she spit out, hushed, "come on! Get behind the counter and crawl on the floor! Don't want Mr. Smiley or anyone to know you're back here!"
Geez, she hoped she could keep up the facade of this all being a game.
"We get to go behind the counter?!"
"Yeah, but quick! And then… um… crawl all the way through the doorway to the back room, and once we're behind the wall, I'll give you the next instruction!"
The boys giggled to themselves and, thankfully, followed her instruction. She gave a long last look out of the front of her booth before willing herself to follow the boys and try to see if she could find something back there that would have been a good excuse for going to the back room, were someone to show up.
She walked back and looked at the two kids in front of her, more excited than she expected them to be in the relative darkness that shrouded the back room.
…If only it didn't feel like leaving the booth entirely with the both of them would draw more attention to what she was doing.
"Okay, now… uh… the object of the game is to stay in here and be real quiet until I say you can come out, okay? It's really important you follow the rules, so you can win! And… um… if you hear me say… uh… uhm… 'go to the store', then," she walked over to the door out of the back of the booth and unlocked it, "you get to go out this door and run as fast as you can to first aid. Then lock the door and don't leave or unlock it for anyone, okay? Except—" Wait. She didn't know how the woman sounded. "Actually, not even me. No one. Got it?"
"…This is a weird game," Steven said.
Peedee, wise beyond his years for all the wrong reasons, remarked, "I think maybe it's real. She probably sees someone scary or something so we have to hide from 'em."
"Like the hash-slinging slasher?" Steven said, big eyes practically growing to saucers.
Peedee rolled his eyes. "No, like… my mom or something."
Cassi bit her lip and tried not to look concerned as she looked for a bag of the plush bunny prizes. She had only started babysitting Peedee on and off about a year ago, but she'd gotten the lowdown that his mom was in jail, that it had taken him months of therapy to be okay with anyone but his dad or the teachers at school watching him after what had put her in jail in the first place.
The woman out there was not his mom, she knew that much.
After a few moments, she sighed.
"Okay, you know what? I think you two are old enough and wise enough to understand. Right?" The question was rhetorical but they nodded nonetheless. "There was someone weird out there. A woman with a blond ponytail and a white shirt. Not your mom, Peedee." She saw him silently breathe out a breath she didn't know he was holding and frowned.
"So I thought it was safer if she didn't know where you went. But if she comes over here, I wanted to give you a secret code to tell you it's time to get out if I don't think it's still safe for you to hide here, y'know? Especially since I don't know if it'd be better for me to just leave the booth with you or something. I think the best idea is just to have you out of sight until I'm pretty sure she's gone. Okay?" She rolled one last thought over in her head. "And—if you do run into her, especially if she tries anything… scream and let everyone close by know that you have no idea who she is."
Steven and Peedee both looked like deer in headlights.
She squatted down to their level and looked from one to the other as if maybe, perhaps, this was a game. "Everything will be fine. I'll come back, when I think everything's okay." She gave them a last reassuring smile and walked out with the bunny bag.
She was finding places for the lower tier bunnies when the woman showed up.
"Excuse me."
The facade was polite but hurried… something was clearly off. She breathed a slow, silent breath out of her nose and glanced over to the doorway, then put on her best retail smile and turned around.
"How may I help you, miss? Is there something you need? Or just waiting for someone to come by so you can cream 'em at this game and win yourself one of the best bunnies in Beach City?"
Man, she hated the retail act.
"No…" she blinked quickly, almost-but-not-quite batting her eyes, "um… I'm looking for my… my two sons."
…Yeah. Of course she was.
"—Okay. Could you… describe them for me?" This lady was full of crap. She might as well have been the restroom she'd been standing next to earlier.
"Yes, um. Of course. One's, you know, got some curly black hair, and the other one is blond. Like me!" She threw out a titter as if it helped her case.
Cassi kept her voice level. "Sorry, miss. I don't think I've seen any kids like that around here." …She was sure she was giving off a vibe that she wasn't buying this woman for anywhere close to a hot second, even though she was trying to keep that an undertone instead of an overtone.
The woman's brow furrowed and it seemed like she had bought Cassi's act. Maybe. "Are you sure? I could have sworn someone said they came this way."
She offered what she hoped was a convincing shrug. "No. Never seen anyone like that, sorry. You could try giving my manager their names; he runs the lost kid thing anyway—"
That was when the woman did the one thing Cassi wasn't expecting.
She pulled a gun.
"Or I could try asking you. I know you saw me, and I know you saw them. Where'd they go?" The woman's voice was low—in volume and pitch—and almost gravelly, as if she was stressing the bottom of her vocal range to sound more intimidating. She held the gun in a practiced-but-nervous way, trying to keep it discreet to avoid alerting passers-by to its presence.
Cassi raised her hands and spoke as firmly, clearly, hopefully loud enough to reach the back room as she could muster.
"C-Come on, ma'am… it's… I… I really need to go to the store for my parents to get some groceries for dinner after my shift. It—I don't want to be late for that. You don't have to do this."
She listened for what she hoped was a quiet sound, one only someone listening specifically for it would pick up in the din of the park.
Stall, stall, stall. Stall until they're out.
The first aid station is not that far away from the back door, but you've gotta make sure they have enough time to reach it, enough time to hide inside before she might be able to sniff out where they're going and follow.
"You aren't going to tell me what I do or don't 'have' to do," the woman said, contempt in her voice.
Cassi tried half-fruitlessly to keep the waver out of her voice. "B-But… to be frank—if I may—is… is it really worth it to throw away… whatever your plan was? Just for a couple of kids? Y-You could take me, instead. Sh—Shooting will… it'll ruin everything. Everyone will hear it. Even if you, like, w—" She trailed off. "Then you couldn't… couldn't keep kidnapping people… because, um, they'd be—there'd be a… a manhunt for you."
"Not looking for someone like you. Looking for them."
Cassi wanted to ask what that was supposed to mean, but she held her tongue as the would-be kidnapper spoke again.
"Besides, you kind of know my shtick now. Don't wanna risk a witness." She cocked the gun.
Cassi was visibly shaking at this point, but she did her best to lower her brow and steady her voice as the woman raised the gun practically to where Cassi could look down the barrel.
"Then… with all due respect… ma'am," she spat, "you will never find them."
The muffled sentence carried through the wall to the back area where Steven and Peedee were hiding.
"I really need to go to the store for my parents to get some groceries for dinner after my shift."
That was the word! They pushed at the door in the small back room and burst out of it, charging for the first aid station.
They were running nearly as fast as their seven year old legs could carry them, mere feet from first aid, when the shot rang out.
People were screaming, and Steven froze.
Some part of him must have known it was a gun, but he had only heard sounds like that on TV, when Amethyst watched something in front of him that Dad said he wasn't allowed to watch.
He barely turned his head back—though it wasn't as if he would see much through the building—when Peedee, running back toward him, grabbed his hand and pulled him, stumbling in their speed, toward the first aid station.
They slipped in, and they locked the door.
They wouldn't open it for anyone.
Not even Cassi.
Several hours later, and the police had taped off a small portion of the park.
Several hours later, and a woman had been detained, tackled and pinned when a bystander saw her start to flee and got the vibe he shouldn't give the benefit of the doubt that she might just be running from danger.
(She wasn't the only one, but thankfully, she was one.)
Several hours later, and two boys were still missing.
Several hours later, and two parents were trying not to fear the worst.
The sole security guard covering the park, halfway through a month-long assignment before he would probably end up securing a different perimeter a town or two over, had been given the permission to scope out any part of the park not taped off as part of the active scene. …Even if in a way the whole park was sort of part of a scene itself, considering the whole "two missing kids" thing.
The Beach City Police Department would be overseeing the out-of-park search.
But then, considering this town's police could barely keep the trail of a mouse half-succumbed to rat poison, Mr. Fryman and Mr. Universe were not optimistic of a quick resolution to that search.
"So… we've done a sweep of nearly everywhere else in the park—restrooms, offices, rides, attractions—so if they're still here, first aid's our best bet," the security guard said.
Mr. Fryman's voice was firm and worried. "…Why didn't anyone try looking in first aid to begin with? Wouldn't you have… needed—?"
The guard shifted his weight from one foot to the other and frowned. Mr. Smiley was the one to speak, tone muted and voice barely there.
"…We… By the time… someone… got to her, we didn't have any reason to get anything outta there."
He looked down at the traces of blood on his knee and the lower hem of his shorts and tried to push aside the fresh memory of seeing his only employee—his teenage employee—carted away in a freakin' body bag.
No one in the room spoke for a moment, as if silently agreeing to give the death a moment to settle in the air.
When they did speak, Greg spoke first.
"So… we just… open the door, right? Check if they're in there?" Greg had gone on enough Funland outings to know that typically the first aid door was not only unlocked but standing wide open.
The security guard tilted his head. "Well, that's the problem. It's locked. We could get in without unlocking it, but I'd rather not scare two seven year olds any more than they probably are."
Mr. Fryman and Mr. Universe looked toward Mr. Smiley expectantly.
"…My keys are always in my pocket, but… so they must've fallen out when I was… with…" He trailed off. He didn't need to say where he was or clarify that he probably wouldn't be able to cross the tape to go get them.
The guard rolled over the possible remedies to a locked door in his head, then pulled a key out of his pocket and handed it to Mr. Smiley.
"There's a case in my work car's trunk with something that looks kind of like a staple gun in it. It's a brute force kind of lock pick. Pretty quiet, as methods of getting a locked door open go… If there's someone watching who leaves and comes into the park, consider taking them with you or at least telling them what you're doing before you leave, if they can't leave their post, so they don't ask a bunch of questions when you come back or keep you from getting back in. And some personal advice: Try to avoid media if there are any out there."
The man's only response was a pause followed by a single nod, then a turn as he headed away, looking as if he was about to get lost in a park he owned.
Mr. Fryman spoke, barely holding back impatience. "So… we just… wait? For him to get back with the lock pick?"
"It's our sure shot for getting the door open, but we could use the wait to try to coax them out, assuming it is them in there." The guard took the reins before either dad could volunteer and sat cross-legged by the door, close so he could talk through it to whoever might be on the other side.
"Hey, I'm looking for… Steven and… Peedee. There's no one like that in there, right?" His voice was soft, welcoming, and almost playful, as if he was speaking to his own child.
That he was met with silence didn't faze him.
"My name's Doug. I've been doing some security at the park the last couple weeks. Maybe you saw me on the way in? I heard you guys are around… seven? I have a daughter who's just a little younger than you." As if to cement that he was a complete non-threat, he slid a picture under the door.
On the other side, Steven and Peedee picked it up and examined it, a picture of a girl with warm brown skin and black hair in a t-shirt and a skirt with big, round glasses, wearing a backpack with a big smile on her face, a first-day-of-school photo.
Peedee turned and knelt as if he was about to stand up and open the door, but Steven grabbed his arm.
"She said not to open it for anyone!" he whispered.
"But it's the police, Steven!" Peedee hissed back.
Steven responded, his eyes analytical and pleading. "But how do we know?"
Peedee stopped to consider this. It was true that through the door they really couldn't tell if this guy was the real deal, he supposed.
He shoved the picture back under the door.
Peedee let his tensed shoulders drop. "Now as long as we stay really quiet, maybe he won't think we're in here."
Doug picked the photo back up and walked over to the two men.
"Well. I definitely think someone is in there, and at this point, it's not like it's anyone else it could be, I don't think. But something tells me they don't want to come out for just anyone."
Greg cocked a brow. "What do you mean?"
"They pushed a picture of my daughter I showed them to try to make them feel comfortable with opening the door back under it to me. Something about it felt a few steps removed from that phase kids grow out of where they say 'no one's in here' when they're hiding somewhere and expect you to believe it."
"So you… think they don't want to be found?" Mr. Fryman said skeptically.
"No, I think they don't want to be found by the wrong person. Which is a pretty smart thought process for a kid their age. Good self-preservation skill in this kind of emergency."
"You think they would open it for one of us?" Mr. Fryman asked.
Greg didn't wait, walking over to the door and squatting beside it.
"…Schtu-ball? It's me. Are you in there?"
On the other side of the door, Steven's eyes widened, and he spoke quietly, just barely audible through the thick steel, "…Daddy?"
Greg froze, a chill running up his spine.
Steven hadn't called him "Daddy" for nearly two years.
He tried not to let his son hear the wavering of his voice as the threat of starting to cry reared its ugly head. "Yeah, bud, it's me. Do you want to open the door? Everyone's been looking for you. Peedee, too. His dad's here." Mr. Fryman added an affirmative noise he hoped Peedee could hear.
"I can't!" Steven exclaimed, sounding ready to cry on the other side of the door.
Greg's brow furrowed as he frowned at his son's… not wholly unexpected but rather sudden show of emotion. "Whoa, take a deep breath, Steven. Why not? Is it stuck?"
"She said not to open it for anyone, not even her!" he blurted.
Ah, Steven, unflinchingly literal at all of the worst possible times.
Mr. Fryman leaned in closer, joining Greg on the ground. "Who said, guys?"
"Cassi!" Steven said.
"Yeah," Peedee added. "She said there was a scary lady so we could hide in the back of the water gun game but then she gave us a codeword to run out the door and come here!"
"There was this loud," Steven did his best to imitate the sound of the gunshot, "noise, and people were screaming and we came in and locked the door like she said and we didn't open it for anyone!"
The three men present looked to each other in concerned silence.
"…You… You guys did good," Mr. Fryman managed to force out.
"Yeah. You…" Greg sniffed, speaking gently. "You two were… real responsible. They caught the lady, nothing's gonna hurt you. It's okay to come out."
A moment passed but then the door clicked and they could hear the kids fiddling with the handle. Mr. Fryman did his part to lean over and pull down on the handle to pull the door open, and the kids came tumbling out.
"Dad!" Steven and Peedee screamed in unison, running into their parents' waiting arms. For their part, the men held their children close, as if they hadn't seen them in years, as if they might not see them again.
After letting them have their moment, Doug awkwardly cut in. "The police are probably going to want statements out of your kids."
Greg and Mr. Fryman looked to each other, and Greg glanced at the sky, which was fairly close to comfortably dark by this point.
"…Does it have to be today? I dunno about Peedee, but it's like an hour past Steven's bedtime."
"Of course. They can't ask your kids to talk without going through you first," Doug said.
The two tired men carried their even more tired kids out of the park, passing a beleaguered Mr. Smiley trying and failing to avoid being accosted by one Carly Fuentes of WUDV Eyewitness News trying to get a statement for the upcoming 11pm broadcast.
"So I… I'm pretty sure I went in the next day and then they asked me all sorts of questions and I couldn't answer most of them?" Steven looks over at his therapist, self-conscious about the amount of nonstop talking he's been doing. She hasn't taken her eyes off him for the entire course of his recounting.
"Sure, you were seven. Seven year olds can be pretty astute, but a crime investigation is a big ask. And I remember that incident—it was one of the biggest pieces of news out of Beach City since… like… ever. The murder and the missing children thing—never would've thought you were one of those kids I read about in the paper ten years ago." She lets sympathy creep onto her face.
Steven sits with that for a moment and then says, "I didn't even move into the beach house that summer like we were planning on. …I didn't do it for a few more years, actually."
He frowns once the probable reason for that comes to mind. "I think Dad was worried because I kept having nightmares, like, constantly for a little while. Until I didn't. Maybe he wanted to keep me with him because he wasn't sure the gems would know how to handle it? I dunno." He blows a breath out of his mouth. "Why did I stop having nightmares? How did it become so minor I completely forgot it even happened?"
The therapist fiddles with a pen as she considers the question. "Maybe your dad was enough of a buffer it let you heal and you didn't have to focus on it so much, even without medical help? And maybe after a while you had bigger traumas on your plate so it sort of… faded to the background."
He grimaces. "Maybe… but it feels like it should have had more of an impact. I mean, I stopped having a babysitter after that; Dad just kept me at the car wash all the time until… I guess until he thought maybe it wouldn't happen again and I was safe going somewhere on my own. And, like, I'm pretty sure I made her parents a card? Like, Dad thought it'd be a good idea, I guess." His fingers repeatedly, rapidly rap the side of his leg. "I think they moved out of town."
"Makes sense," she says. "Losing a kid usually hits people harder than a lot of other things, so if they had another reason to leave, they might not have wanted to stick around with the reminder."
He rubs the denim of his jeans as his feet kick lightly. He lets out a slow breath.
"It feels weird now that I'm thinking about it again, though."
"How so?"
"She was around my age now, and she's just… gone. From one single time of being in the wrong place, where she tried to do the right thing. And I've had so many times I could've just…" He flails his arms lightly as if that's supposed to be an answer. "But I'm still here."
"Why do you think you're following the train of thought that way?"
He purses his lips and sniffs. "I… I dunno. It just… feels like it isn't fair. Or like I should have done something—I mean, I didn't have powers back then, not really, but still. Mr. Smiley never even hired another employee until the work-study program at Little Homeschool got started. And I bet he only really okayed that because gems can't really… die like humans? Not the same way, anyway. He spent so long running the park and the arcade all alone. It's weird."
"Would you say things are better now, though?" After she poses the question, Steven lets it settle in the room before he responds.
"I guess. And I know I can't just… like… change the past, but is it wrong to want to?"
"…No, it's not."